When I was thinking about yesterday’s post — Are Horse People Crazy? — it occurred to me that horse people definitely have a unique sense of humor.

I culled these “you know you’re a horse person” statements from several horse humor web sites and have posted the ones that rang particularly true to my experience (plus a few of my own). Enjoy!

• Your 5 year old son picks up your snaffle bit and asks if he can use your hand cuffs.
• You dress like a lawyer on weekdays and someone who needs a lawyer on your days off.
• You pull a $17,000 horse trailer with a $1,700 pickup truck.
• You show up in city clothes dressed for appointments and when you get there people reach over the breakfast table to pick alfalfa out of your hair.
• Your boyfriend complains that you love your horse more then you love him and you answer: “And your point is?”
• You consider a pristine golf course as a waste of good pasture land.
• You buy duct tape by the case, and carry rolls in your pocketbook, your briefcase, and the console of your car.
• You plan your pregnancy around the show season.
• You realize that finding a horse shoe truly is lucky because you’ve saved ten bucks.
• You say “whoa” to your truck.
• You see the vet more than your child’s pediatrician.
• Your horse gets new shoes more often than you and they’re more expensive.
• Your horse gets more compliments for grooming than you do.
• You’ve considered moving into the barn, since it is cleaner than the house.
• You run your tongue over your back molars and idly wonder if they need to be floated.
• You count how many steps (strides) you take in between the cracks in the sidewalk, the shadows of trees, etc.
• You keep a spare curb chain in your purse for emergencies.
• The board check is paid before any other bill.
• You coax your horse into the trailer with a carrot, give him a bite, and walk out finishing it yourself.
• You pay more for a saddle than you did for your car/
• You clean tack after every ride, but never ever wash your car.
• You give directions to your house and say, “It has lots of horse trailers in the front yard.”
  Someone says, “Does anyone have a screwdriver?” and you hand them a hoofpick.
  The doctor says the bump on your finger is an inflamed tendon sheath, and you tell him, “Oh, you mean a windpuff.”
• Insure your horse for more than your car.
• You cannot imagine why anyone would think it kinky to own whips.
• Books and movies are ruined for you if horsemanship references are incorrect.
• All your stock has 4 legs.
• You don’t notice the barn smells on your clothes/shoes and wonder why “regular” folks are sniffing the air.
• Cooky McClung’s stories in The Chronicle of the Horse, however humorously told they might be, sound like a “normal” life.
• You known more about equine nutrition than human nutrition and it shows.
• You don’t try to figure out your to-date-expenses for the critters, cuz you don’t want to know, and it doesn’t matter.
• You spend more on that 6 year old jumper than you’ve EVER spent on a car!
• You go on a diet, not to be more attractive, but to be a better rider.
• Every time you go to the stable, it takes 3 hours and you can’t imagine where the time goes.
• There are bits soaking in your bathroom sink.
• You drive by ANY field ANYWHERE and look very hard for horses. This includes trips to foreign countries.
• Your horse gets vitamins and supplements everyday and you can’t remember to take vitamins yourself.
• You can pinpoint anything you might need in 2 seconds in your tack trunk but seem to have misplaced this month’s electric bill.
• You do stalls the morning before your labor is to be induced.
• When the doctor tells you that they have to do a c-section your first question (much to your spouses horror) is how long will it be until I can ride? and you are devastated when he says 4-6 weeks. As a matter of pride, you get on your horse exactly 28 days after giving birth.
• You start a home-based business in order that you can quit your job and devote more time to showing and the horses.
• Your graphic designer asks you: ‘What do you know about Acrobat?’ and you answer ‘The stallion?
• You insist to your SO during a game of Scrabble that “oxer” is, too, a word, even if it ISN’T in the dictionary, and spend a good half-hour poring over horse books to find it in writing.
• You’re at the post office looking at the Santa and his Reindeer cutouts on the wall, and you make a mental note that all the reindeer are hanging their knees and they better get better form if they’re going to continue this jumping thing!
• When your sole purpose in buying coffee in a can is to use it to measure grain.
• Have fewer clothes than your horse.
• Engage in a hobby that is more work than your day job.

For more indications that you are a horse person, check out the following Web sites:

Equisearch Horse Humor

Unicorner Farm

IHSA

Rec.Equestrian

Animal Talk

Equerry